The Bay Area bucked the statewide trend Wednesday as the region recorded its most fatalities from COVID-19 of any single day of the pandemic.

Across California, daily deaths have been on a consistent decline since their early August peak. But after 157 new fatalities Wednesday — including a record 27 in the Bay Area — the seven-day average crept up slightly to about 111 per day, according to data compiled by this news organization. The rate had fallen as low as about 109 deaths per day this week from a peak of more than 145 — a 25% decline.

The record-setting day in the Bay Area was fueled by 17 fatalities in Alameda County, which has struggled more than its neighbors to quash the virus. It has recorded more cases and deaths from the virus than any other county in the region, and while hospitalizations begin to decline elsewhere, they’ve remained flat in Alameda County.

It took longer in the Bay Area than other, harder-hit areas of the state for it to see its hospitalizations begin to fall. When they have, it’s come at a slower rate. Across the Bay, hospitalizations are down about 30% from their peak, compared to parts of Southern California and the Central Valley that have cut their rates in about half. But in Alameda County, that number has fluctuated: as many as 202 late last week — within 5% of its peak — and as little as 162 four days later, the fewest since July 19.

It’s largely the working-class neighborhoods in East Oakland with the highest rates of spread. The three zip codes that encompass Fruitvale, the Coliseum and Oakland International Airport, down to the San Leandro border, all have at least 3,500 cases per 100,000 residents, more than twice the rate of spread anywhere else in the county. Those three zip codes also have the highest test-positivity rates in the county, reaching as high as 16.9%, compared to a statewide rate of 4.9%.

The University of California San Francisco announced plans this week to launch a “mass testing” effort in East Oakland, similar to the one it provided in the San Francisco’s Mission District.

There was no publicly available data that shows the breakdown of hospitalizations or deaths by location in the county.

It has reported three of its five deadliest days of the pandemic in the past eight days. The 274 deaths and 18,695 cases in Alameda County are more than anywhere else in the Bay Area. However, like elsewhere in the state and the region, its case load is dropping.

California’s seven-day average fell below 5,000 cases per day Wednesday for the first time since June 25, a full 50% drop from its peak in mid-July. Although the Bay Area set a daily death record, its 10 counties reported fewer than 1,000 total cases for a second straight day, led by 337 in Santa Clara, 250 in Alameda and 117 in Sonoma.

The 17 fatalities in Alameda County were enough to overtake Stanislaus County, which has about one-third the population, in overall death toll. But still, no Bay Area county ranks among the top 10 in California, led by Los Angeles, Riverside and Orange counties — the three jurisdictions in the state with more than 1,000 deaths from the virus.

LA and Orange counties also led the state in fatalities reported Wednesday, with 49 and 19, respectively. San Joaquin County, which has the sixth-highest overall death toll despite the 15th-highest population, reported 14 fatalities Wednesday, followed by eight in Sacramento and seven each in San Diego, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

Across the U.S., approximately another 1,000 Americans died from COVID-19 on Wednesday as the nationwide death toll climbed above 185,000, more than any country in the world.